An End and a Beginning (12 page)

“I wonder what kind of a place this Rath Na really is? A big old rambling place, Desmond once said. Out in the wilds.
She
was born there. I'll see her room.”

It was like an adventure. “I'm glad I'm out of Gelton, and yet all the time I know I'll go back. There's something in that place, I don't know what, but there is, there is. Yes, I expect I'll return there all right.”

And his thought rocked to and fro with the train's rhythm. “It still doesn't seem quite real, sitting on this train, all alone, not a sound but the wheels, queer in a way,
queer
. The Ram's Gate, why do they call it Rath Na anyhow? The Ram's Gate,” he said again, trying to visualise the house—“Miss Fetch——” wondering what kind of person Miss Fetch was. “Expect she knows, too. Everybody knows. That's the trouble. All that time. I think of a clock, a wall, don't remember much else. I've altered a lot, took a good squint at myself in a glass this morning. Going grey. All that time older. Ah, well!”

He turned away from the window, he stood up. He looked into the mirror, but the light in the compartment was poor, he saw only a blur. He looked rather indifferently at advertisements of Irish resorts, too healthy people, happily sitting by impossible seas.

“Yes, I'm different. She wouldn't know me if she saw me now,” and then he sat down again. “Have to plan my life now. I'll go for long, long walks, all over the place. I'll think it all out. I
must
try to find my sister. I
must
write to Anthony. To Kilkey. I'll drop a line of thanks to old Delaney, an apology to that lawyer man. I'll go to Dublin and see Anna. Wonder what
she's
like? Tony was a sure sticker, quiet, secretive, serious sort of person. Wonder what he looks like? Must drop him a line some time.”

He was filled with resolve, he longed to gather together again the links, the strands that had held his family together. How scattered it was. He felt suddenly lost again, isolated. He ached to belong, to have something to hold. Everybody offered advice, suggested different things, there were many directions, yet somewhere there was the mirage. If only he could get back a
feeling
, a sense of being home, of being somewhere that held the warmth he had known all those years ago.

Out of his wretched moments, moments when he seemed to breathe in the grey dust of the quarries, trudging the hard, meaningless road—in those moments of utter wretchedness he leaped towards the lighthouse. The note came out of his pocket, he read it again. “Go there. Hide there.”

She knew he wanted that, she understood him, and then he saw her, very suddenly, glancing in on him through the carriage window. He saw her vividly, years away, and he could not believe that she would be different. His mind refused to accept it. She was twenty-seven, she was dark, lovely to look at.

“Perhaps I hated Desmond all the time, from the moment he brought her over to Gelton. Perhaps she loved
me.
”

The train had stopped. He got up and opened the window. Looking out he saw a stone platform, dim under a single light. He saw a man.

“Ballinasloe! Ballinasloe!” He had arrived. He got out and hurried to the porter.

“You'll have to walk it, sir. You'll get nothing hereabouts at this time of the night, and The Foxes is shut up, so you'll get nothing there either. And
look
at the fog!”

“Yes, look at it,” Peter echoed the words, and then he felt the cold night air upon his neck. “I should have brought an overcoat. Why on earth didn't I get one?”

He enquired the way, the easiest route. The porter accompanied him out of the station. He pointed away into the fog. “Straight ahead, sir, until you reach the crossroads, then a sharp left turn, and down Lanty's Lane for about a half mile, sir, then another turn, this time right, and you go straight on until you come to Honeysuckle Lane. It's a
climb
. All the way up it's climbing——”

“Isn't there any hotel here?”

“There's The Foxes as doesn't put up anybody at all, sir, and the woman's sore ill there at the present. If I were you, sir, I'd just go doggedly ahead. Best and cheapest thing to do. It'll keep you warm on this bitter night, fog glides into your bones hereabouts. You haven't left your overcoat in the carriage, I suppose?”

“Thanks,” Peter said, “I'll find my way all right. Don't worry. Thanks again. Good-night.”

“Good-night, sir! And take care you doesn't put your foot wrong, or else well have to be out early looking for you in the wide morning.”

He stood watching the tall man walk slowly away, collar turned up, hands thrust deep into his pockets, shoulders slightly bent.

“Now fancy a creature without an overcoat out on a night like this. And going off for that dumpy big house, too. But I wonder who the divil he can be?”

He returned to his smoky little room. There, he ruminated before his bright fire, and waited patiently for the last down train before he finally shut up the station.

Peter had vanished into the fog. The road ahead was as dark and mysterious as the house towards which he now plodded.

“Imagine a woman living alone in a place like that. She must have nerves of iron, or has she any at all? It'll take me an hour, perhaps more. I wish I'd caught the earlier train,” remembering the struggle to make up his mind, in that too warm bed. “Just fancy my thinking of everything except an overcoat.”

The fog and the heightened silence wrapped more closely about him. He shivered. “I can only hope that this woman got my telegram. And I hope I can get something to drink there. It keeps you warm.”

The fog thickened, and he hurried on. “What a name for a house. That porter telling me to go down Lanty's Lane, and then go down Honeysuckle Lane, as if I had a pair of eyes that could pick out names in a fog, as if the names were there. I can smell the sea.”

He stood for a moment or two, his head raised, breathing it in. He looked quickly round, he listened. He heard only his own breathing. The fog obliterated all sense of distance, and he was suddenly unsure, slackening his pace, groping his way forward into nowhere in particular.

“If I could see a house anywhere, a cottage——” He went on.

“How glad he must have been to see the back of me,” thinking aloud. “Yes, he must have found it very awkward, coming to see me at that Talon place. Never thought he would root me out, but I suppose he knows the holes in Gelton as well as I do.” As he talked, he kept turning his head to one side, as though the imagined figure now paced him, as though Desmond had suddenly loomed out of the fog, and walked beside him.

“He never trusted me from that day, never wanted to see me again. I know that.”

Suddenly he saw a light. As he approached it he heard the barking of a dog. He found a door, and knocked. An old man opened it to him. “Which way to Rath Na?”

“Straight ahead of you.” The voice was gruff, indifferent, the door banged.

“God! What a place to live in. What a fog.” He stopped again, striking matches.

“Surely I must turn here?” With half the contents of the match-box he lighted his way to the lane. “I'm all right,” he thought. He was still climbing. “And now it won't be long.” Gelton was a thousand miles away, and the people in it, but sometimes the picture of its sprawling water-front came into his mind.

“Go to Rath Na. A room is ready. You could hide there. The housekeeper, Miss Fetch, is expecting you.” The words moved about him like hands, tugging at him, drawing him on, higher and higher, towards the house on the hill. Then he saw another light, and though he could not realize it, it was Miss Fetch's sentinel candle that he now saw. “I believe I've arrived,” he thought. “I'm here,” he said.

It was Miss Fetch, who, after hours of waiting, heard the big gate creak. “He's here,” she told herself. “Whoever he is, he's here.” She went downstairs to meet him. Already he was tugging at the rusted bell, and it sent reverberations over the whole house. They seemed to burst through the walls, wash against the big door, ring loudly over the silent countryside.

“You are Mr. Fury?”

“I am. Good evening.”

The candle was held high. Two fierce eyes were looking at him.

“D'you know about the time?” she asked.

“I haven't a watch. It was a long walk in this fog.”

“It's half past one o'clock in the morning,” Miss Fetch informed him, adding, very begrudgingly, “You had better come in.”

He stepped inside. The door closed silently after him, shutting out the fog, and the sea, and the darkness. “This way please,” the housekeeper said.

He walked behind her down the long, dark hall. Clumsily he bumped into the oaken chest.

“And be very careful, please,” the tone of her voice admonishing. After all it was one o'clock of a foggy morning, and she did not know him.

“Yes, of course, sorry,” Peter said, following the candle, the thin figure, hearing the swish of a dress.

“You should not have come here at this time. You ought to have stayed the night in the village.” He was confused, stammering, he was sorry, it was the fog, he had lost his way, he had walked from the station, it couldn't be helped.

“This way,” she said. “That is why you should have waited until the morning. It would have showed more sense in a grown man. But perhaps your anxiety to get here prevented you from being sensible. You have kept me out of bed. I go to bed at ten o'clock every night, prompt.”

“I'm sorry then,” Peter said again, and then he banged into a chair, and sent it scattering across the stone floor.

“Good gracious! You're not drunk, I hope?” But he did not answer her, following quickly, smelling the dampness, the mustiness.

“Step this way. Watch the stairs. That carpet is covered, as you may see.” Up the long flight of stairs, on to the dark landing, down an ink-black corridor, and then she stopped. Holding the candle high in the air, she studied him. “I presume you
are
Mr. Fury? The times we live in. People are incredible.”

“I am and I have proof of it,” he replied sharply.

“There is your room. I'll leave you this candle. You had better come down to the kitchen where some supper is waiting you. It's probably quite cold by this time. No matter. Do you want to come down at once?”

He followed her down. He said, a little nervously, “May I carry the candle for you?”

“I can manage.”

“In here,” Miss Fetch said, “and
do
be careful. What a clumsy person you are.”

“I suppose this is Rath Na,” Peter said.

“I suppose it is,” she replied. Again the candle was held high, and she stood behind the table, still watching him.

“Have you no overcoat with you on a night like this? Have you things with you?”

Her voice rang through the kitchen, an enquiry, an accusation, an affront. He was silent, and, looking across the table, under the candle's light, noted only the prominence of bone in the white, severe features. The eyes seemed to search him out in the moment that they sat down opposite each other at the large, bare, wooden table, that might now be the desert between them. He looked everywhere at once, and suddenly he had seen everything. But never before had he seen such an enormous table, and by comparison the formidable Talon table at The Curving Light, faded away. Then he sat down, and he ignored the woman.

She put the candle on the table, crossed to the range, and from the oven she took out a stew-pot. This she placed in front of him. She banged things down; the cutlery
struck
the table, the plate
ground
its way across the wooden surface. For a moment she remained standing at his shoulder, looking down on his head, and the closely-cropped hair, the sallow face, and the big hands, the fingers and the finger-nails, the features in profile, the cheap, shapeless, tweed suit.

“If there's anything else you require,” Miss Fetch said, “I——” But he did not move, did not look at her, but exclaimed sharply, “The name is Fury.”

“I'm not unaware of it. If there's anything else you want, you will say so now, please. I wish to retire. It has been a very
long, disturbing
day.”

She spoke slowly, carefully, and her voice carried the weight and feel of a hidden resentment.

“There's nothing more I require,” Peter said. “Thank-you.” He swung round and faced her. “Except a candle.”

“You already have one,” Miss Fetch replied. “Good-night.”

“Good-night.”

Long after her departure he began to eat. He had watched her, heard the door close on him, the creak of the stairs as she climbed. And he had gone on listening, watching, and he noticed how, as she went out, her bony hand clung to the brass knob.

The hand seemed loath to loosen its hold.

“What a strange woman.” The stew was cold, unseasoned, the coffee strong, black, lukewarm. But he felt hungry and did justice to the supper. Afterwards he leaned back in the chair and lit a cigarette. His eye began a slow, exploratory journey around the kitchen.

“Enormous! You could make three kitchens out of this. But what a strange, even sour creature is Miss Fetch.” Rising to his feet he pushed in his chair, and picking up the heavy silver candlestick, went slowly out. Mounting the stairs he imagined for a moment that he was moving into some dark and endless tunnel. And then the quiet, quite involuntary exclamation. “This is where she was born. To-morrow I shall see everything. I hope I haven't forgotten where
my
room is, that woman already thinks me quite stupid. Third door on the first landing. Yes, that's it. Wonder where
she
sleeps? I wonder where
she
sleeps?”

He held high the candle when he reached the landing, staring about him. Then he walked quickly to his room, and entered it. It smelt damp, musty, and at a glance he saw that a quick, though half-hearted, effort had been made to start a fire in the black grate. It had collapsed miserably. The wall was covered with pictures and photographs. He set the candle on the table, ran his hand over the bed. Feeling the hard lump of a stone water-bottle he thought, “She didn't forget that, even if she did forget my name.”